27 A.D.2d 844 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1967
Judgment of the Supreme Court, Kings County, entered November 23, 1965, in favor of defendant upon a jury verdict, reversed, on the law, and new trial granted, with costs to abide the event. The questions of fact have not been considered. The plaintiff’s decedent, a locksmith, sustained personal injuries when he fell from the first floor into the cellar while installing a lock on a door in a house under construction by defendant as owner and general contractor. It is claimed that his death several years later was due to the injuries he thus received. The door opened out from the stairwell, into which, it appears, a stairway and landings had not yet been installed. The work the decedent was doing required that the door be open and there was no railing or other barrier across the doorway to the stairwell, which was fully enclosed on its other sides. The charge of the court left it to the jury to decide whether this stairwell was the kind of opening with respect to which defendant owed plaintiff any legal duty, without- making reference to applicable statutes (Labor Law, §§ 240, 241-a) and rules (§§ 23-3.9 and 23-3.24 of the State Industrial Code adopted by the State Board of Standards and Appeals;